Folktales of Joha, Jewish Trickster

Folktales of Joha, Jewish Trickster PDF Author: Matilda Ko‚n-Sarano
Publisher: Jewish Publication Society
ISBN: 0827610149
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 297

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Book Description
"Joha has Janus's double face: On the one hand, he is innocent and stupid; on the other, a trickster. He is a cheater and is cheated. He sets traps for others and falls into traps himself; he is simpleton and liar, victimizer and victim. But as a literary figure he never dies. The nearly 300 stories in this lovely volume are from Sephardic oral literature and ethnic culture. They were told to Matilda Kon-Sarano in their original language, Judeo-Spanish (Ladino), and documented over 21 years. From 17 countries, including the United States, they come together in this first-ever collection of Joha stories to appear in English. Known in some places as Ladino, Judeo-Spanish is a living remnant of the Spanish spoken by the Spanish Jews at the end of the 15th century. Matilda Kon-Sarano, born to a Sephardic family, has devoted her life to the conservation and revitalization of this language, culture, and heritage. Joha, according to Ladino tradition, is a popular folklore character, one who is conniving yet also beguiling. He plays many roles: He makes us laugh; liberates us from taboos; makes it possible to tell the whole, sometimes painful, truth in a humorous way; and helps us triumph over our enemies through laughter. These stories have entertained generations of Sephardic children and adults and will delight readers of any age."

Folktales of Joha, Jewish Trickster

Folktales of Joha, Jewish Trickster PDF Author: Matilda Ko‚n-Sarano
Publisher: Jewish Publication Society
ISBN: 0827610149
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 297

Get Book Here

Book Description
"Joha has Janus's double face: On the one hand, he is innocent and stupid; on the other, a trickster. He is a cheater and is cheated. He sets traps for others and falls into traps himself; he is simpleton and liar, victimizer and victim. But as a literary figure he never dies. The nearly 300 stories in this lovely volume are from Sephardic oral literature and ethnic culture. They were told to Matilda Kon-Sarano in their original language, Judeo-Spanish (Ladino), and documented over 21 years. From 17 countries, including the United States, they come together in this first-ever collection of Joha stories to appear in English. Known in some places as Ladino, Judeo-Spanish is a living remnant of the Spanish spoken by the Spanish Jews at the end of the 15th century. Matilda Kon-Sarano, born to a Sephardic family, has devoted her life to the conservation and revitalization of this language, culture, and heritage. Joha, according to Ladino tradition, is a popular folklore character, one who is conniving yet also beguiling. He plays many roles: He makes us laugh; liberates us from taboos; makes it possible to tell the whole, sometimes painful, truth in a humorous way; and helps us triumph over our enemies through laughter. These stories have entertained generations of Sephardic children and adults and will delight readers of any age."

Solomon and the Ant

Solomon and the Ant PDF Author:
Publisher: Boyds Mills Press
ISBN: 1629792918
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 174

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Book Description
A treasure trove of forty-three religious, wisdom, riddle, and trickster Jewish folktales that have been told near the hearth, at the table, and in the synagogue for centuries. Sheldon Oberman, a master storyteller, retells the tales with simplicity and grace, making them perfect for performing and reading aloud. Peninnah Schram, herself an acclaimed storyteller and folklorist, provides lively notes and commentary that examine the meaning of each tale and its place in history.

Folktales of the Jews, Volume 1

Folktales of the Jews, Volume 1 PDF Author: Dov Noy
Publisher: Jewish Publication Society
ISBN: 0827608292
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 769

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Book Description
Tales from the Sephardic Dispersion begins the most important collection of Jewish folktales ever published. It is the first volume in Folktales of the Jews, the five-volume series to be released over the next several years, in the tradition of Louis Ginzberg's classic, Legends of the Jews. The 71 tales here and the others in this series have been selected from the Israel Folktale Archives, Named in Honor of Dov Noy, The University of Haifa (IFA), a treasure house of Jewish lore that has remained largely unavailable to the entire world until now. Since the creation of the State of Israel, the IFA has collected more than 20,000 tales from newly arrived immigrants, long-lost stories shared by their families from around the world. The tales come from the major ethno-linguistic communities of the Jewish world and are representative of a wide variety of subjects and motifs, especially rich in Jewish content and context. Each of the tales is accompanied by in-depth commentary that explains the tale's cultural, historical, and literary background and its similarity to other tales in the IFA collection, and extensive scholarly notes. There is also an introduction that describes the Sephardic culture and its folk narrative tradition, a world map of the areas covered, illustrations, biographies of the collectors and narrators, tale type and motif indexes, a subject index, and a comprehensive bibliography. Until the establishment of the IFA, we had had only limited access to the wide range of Jewish folk narratives. Even in Israel, the gathering place of the most wide-ranging cross-section of world Jewry, these folktales have remained largely unknown. Many of the communities no longer exist as cohesive societies in their representative lands; the Holocaust, migration, and changes in living styles have made the continuation of these tales impossible. This volume and the others to come will be monuments to a rich but vanishing oral tradition.

Harpo Marx as Trickster

Harpo Marx as Trickster PDF Author: Charlene Fix
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476601496
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 233

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Book Description
The author invites readers to spend time in the pleasure of Harpo's cinematic company while comparing him to tricksters from folklore, myth and legend. The book demonstrates how Harpo, the sweetest, wildest, most magical Marx brother, accomplishes the archetypal trickster's work. Thirteen chapters examine Harpo's trickster persona closely in each of the Marx Brothers' films: The Cocoanuts, Animal Crackers, Monkey Business, Horse Feathers, Duck Soup, A Night at the Opera, A Day at the Races, Room Service, At the Circus, Go West, The Big Store, A Night in Casablanca and Love Happy. Harpo as trickster embodies luck, foolishness, cleverness, mania, hunger, lust, stealing, shape-shifting, gender-bending, alliance with underdogs, attacks on the powerful, musicality, sympathy for animals, magic and mischief. His trickster behaviors in all the films are woven into a composite impression that "with a little luck, will resonate beyond the covers of this book and leak out into the world, making it a more just, flexible, resilient, amusing and magical place."

The Jewish Story Finder

The Jewish Story Finder PDF Author: Sharon Barcan Elswit
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786448237
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 413

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Book Description
Storytelling, as oral tradition and in writing, has long played a central role in Jewish society. Family, educators, and clergy employ stories to transmit Jewish culture, traditions, and values. This comprehensive bibliography identifies 668 Jewish folktales by title and subject, summarizing plot lines for easy access to the right story for any occasion. Some centuries old and others freshly imagined, the tales include animal fables, supernatural yarns, and anecdotes for festivals and holidays. Themes include justice, community, cause and effect, and mitzvahs, or good deeds. This second edition nearly doubles the number of stories and expands the guide's global reach, with new pieces from Turkey, Morocco, Libya, Tunisia, and Chile. Subject cross-references and a glossary complete the volume, a living tool for understanding the ever-evolving world of Jewish folklore.

Djeha, the North African Trickster

Djeha, the North African Trickster PDF Author: Christa C. Jones
Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi
ISBN: 1496847067
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 88

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Book Description
Djeha—also known as Juha, Jeh’a, and Ch’ha, among many variations—is an iconic figure, the trickster hero of an oral folktale tradition that has existed for centuries. The famous Maghrebian prankster is a poor, cunning, and resourceful character that delights in immoral behavior. Orientalists Auguste Mouliéras (1855-1931) and René Basset (1855-1924) were among the first Frenchmen to collect and translate popular Berber folktales. Today, trickster folktales from Algeria’s mountainous Kabylia region are not well known in the Anglophone world, even though they continue to be highly popular in France and in North Africa. Djeha, the North African Trickster is an annotated, critical translation of Auguste Mouliéras’s folktale collection Les Fourberies de Si Djeh’a, first published in French in 1892. The volume contains sixty tales and an in-depth introduction in which Christa C. Jones discusses jocular literature in Islam, the widespread oral folktale tradition linked to Djeha and his Turkish twin brother Nasreddin Hoca, and the impact of colonialism on the gathering and dissemination of the tales. The trickster is at the center of six themed chapters: “Family and Kinship”; “Animal Tales"; “Faces, Places, or Daily Life in the Village"; “Foodways”; “The Intricacies of Hospitality: Beware of Friends and Foes!"; and “Religion, Death, and the Afterlife.” Each chapter contains ten folktales preceded by a short introduction that contextualizes the pieces using historical, folkloristic, literary, and ethnographical sources. Ultimately, the book contributes to the preservation of an ancestral oral heritage, delivering this enduring character to new audiences.

Encyclopedia of Jewish Folklore and Traditions

Encyclopedia of Jewish Folklore and Traditions PDF Author: Raphael Patai
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317471709
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 1641

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Book Description
This multicultural reference work on Jewish folklore, legends, customs, and other elements of folklife is the first of its kind.

Best Jewish Books for Children and Teens

Best Jewish Books for Children and Teens PDF Author: Silver
Publisher: Jewish Publication Society
ISBN: 0827611218
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 338

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Book Description
Linda Silver selected the titles that "represent the best in writing, illustration, reader appeal, and authentically Jewish content--in picture books, fiction and non-fiction, for readers ranging from early childhood through the high school years."--P. [4] of cover.

The Trickster Figure in American Literature

The Trickster Figure in American Literature PDF Author: Winifred Morgan
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137344725
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 259

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Book Description
This book analyzes and offers fresh insights into the trickster tradition including African American, American Indian, Euro-American, Asian American, and Latino/a stories, Morgan examines the oral roots of each racial/ethnic group to reveal how each group's history, frustrations, and aspirations have molded the tradition in contemporary literature.

The Consolations of Humor and Other Folklore Essays

The Consolations of Humor and Other Folklore Essays PDF Author: Elliott Oring
Publisher: University Press of Colorado
ISBN: 1646425197
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
The Consolations of Humor and Other Folklore Essays unfolds as a series of questions, commentaries, and criticisms of the analysis, interpretation, and explanation of folklore. Can we confidently regard jokes as the catharsis of sexual and aggressive impulses? What is the basis for characterizing a joke as Jewish or Scottish or Japanese? What do we really know about “dirty jokes”? How is a text or behavior constructed so that it is perceived as humorous? Can we get a computer to reliably recognize jokes? What is the relevance of memetics and a Darwinian paradigm to understanding folklore change over time? Can we identify laws operating in the realm of folklore? How can the marginalization, extinction, or continuity of traditions be explained? In the course of addressing these questions, Elliott Oring identifies some fundamental problems, brings new evidence and observations to the discussion, and proffers some original and startling insights. While recognizing the study of jokes and other forms of folklore as a humanistic endeavor, Oring believes in the relevance of a scientific perspective to the enterprise. He values clear definitions, tests of hypotheses and theories, empirical evidence, experiment, and the search for laws. Written in a sophisticated yet accessible style, The Consolations of Humor and Other Folklore Essays stimulates both scholars and students alike and contributes to the creation of a more robust folkloristics in the twenty-first century.